


take my tongue (take it and run)

by okayantigone



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Clairvoyant Hisoka, Eating Disorders, Gen, Gon is pining for Killua, Heaven's Arena, HisoIllu are engaged, Hisoka's Past, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Killua and Alluka are on an adventure, M/M, Mentor Hisoka, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Chimera Ant Arc, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Wing-san is a well meaning human disaster, found family fluff, gentle and caring illumi, past child sexual abuse, the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2019-11-18 21:30:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18126722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: hisoka did not look good. his makeup was smudged, revealing bruised skin under, a thin rivulet of blood was drying on the side of his face, coming from somewhere hidden by his messy hair. he was shaking so bad his teeth were chattering loud enough for gon to hear. he looked wild and unhinged in a way gon hadn't seen on him before, even in the hunter exam. he held his arms over his middle, pale wrists bent unnaturally, his knuckles swollen and bloody."c-can i use your shower?" his voice was rough, hoarse, coming out in a stutter through his chattering teeth. his left ear was torn and bleeding, gon could see now - where someone had torn his earring out.he was too stunned to speak, moving out of his doorway. "hisoka, were you in a fight?"//gon knows that bad things happen in the world. but he'd always thought of hisoka as something that happened to others, not as someone the bad things would happen to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> heed the tags, this fic deals w/ some heavy shit especially when it comes to hisoka's past, so bear that in mind 
> 
> in case the summary was too vague: the fic deals with hisoka being assaulted and suffering the aftermath, with gon & illumi's help, and also deals w/ gon facing how ugly the world can be sometimes, bc he's very good at having his blinders on.

his nen hadn't come back. he had no idea if it was permanent, and no intention of spending his days wallowing, so back to heaven's arena it was. just because he didn't have the use of his nen anymore, didn't mean he was going to sit around and wait for everyne else around him to get amazing and do amazing things. he'd been off whale island - he'd seen how the world looked, and he couldn't be satisfied with just leaving it behind, when he could just as easily be part of it. 

  


and heaven's arena was the one place where he could work to become stronger - maybe even train until his nen returned to him, somehow. it was different being there without killua, to be sure, but that was okay - zushi was there, and he was a floor master now. and hisoka was there too. it was almost like nothing had changed, except, of course, everything had. 

  


he started fighting his way up from the first floor. he wanted to take it easy, go slow, and reaquiant himself with his fighting style. it gave him time to reflect. still, he made it to the hundreds almost surprisingly quickly. had time passed by the first time around? it felt like a lifetime ago. 

  


he'd ran into hisoka more than a few times, and hisoka was always ready to oblige him for a spar, which was just polite speak for literally wiping the 200's gym floor with gon. even when he fought without his nen, to make it fair, he still mostly just ended up knocking gon around for a few hours, until he got bored. 

  


sparring with zushi really  _ wasn't  _ any different either. zushi didn't take it easy on him, because he didn't want to offend him, and gon appreciated it. his nen would come back. or it wouldn't. he'd just have to deal with it either way, and train to compensate for the fact that his opponents more often than not would have an advantage over him. opponents in  _ what  _ though. it's not like he had anything in particular to  _ do.  _ he couldn't really be a hunter anymore. he'd found ging. and now what? 

  


well. that's part of why he was in heaven's arena, right? to take his time and figure things out. mito-san wanted him to go back on whale island and finish school. he  _ wanted  _ to finish school. school was important, after all. he also wanted to go back to swardani city. he wanted to spend time with killua and alluka, when they got back from adventuring - killua kept him updated with funny text messages and pictures of all the places they were going, all the things they were doing. 

  


it was difficult - he felt the absence of killua at his side like a physical wound. a phantom limb that wasn't there anymore - even worse than not having nen was not having killua by his side. 

  


hisoka, wisely, skirted the topic. and it's not like gon would say anything to him about killua anyway - he knew hisoka was close with illumi.    
  


his favorite magician had taken him for a consolation lunch after yet another practice match where gon ended up spitting his last baby tooth out. the people at heaven's arena always went buckwild whnever they saw hisoka in his makeup and battle attire - they  _ loved  _ him, and his fangirls were  _ nuts.  _ he always greeted hit throves of adoring fans with a smile and a wave, and signed whatever t-shirt, poster, or body part was presented at him with a flourish. 

  


which is mostly why when he ventured out, he messed his hair up, and wiped his makeup off, replacing the bold colors of his customary star and teardrop with a more soft, muted look. he still wore the heels though. 

  


gon had gotten another text from killua - he and alluka were on top of an elephant, posing in front of the sign for a historic heritage village, and pointing to a sign that listed ging as the man who'd restored it. it was a lovely picture, but it made gon's chest tighten. 

  


"dare i ask?" hisoka was twirling the pink straw for his fruity drink between long nimble fingers. 

  


gon shook his head quickly.    
  
"is killua-kun having a good time, then?" he sounded genuinely curious. 

  


"sure," gon said, vaguely. hisoka nodded, and didn't push it.    
  
"there's a guy from 213 who's going to challenge me," he said, switching the topic. "do you have a ticket yet?" 

  


of course gon had a ticket. watching hisoka fight was a genuine lesson in skill and class. he'd watched zushi trash a challenger just a few weeks prior, and it had been  _ amazing.  _ wing-san had come to watch the fight too, and he and gon had gotten a chance to catch up. it was nice to be around his old teacher again, and feel soothed by wing's calming presence. he wondered briefly, if wing had heard from bisky-san, but didn't ask. he wasn't sure he wanted to see her now that he didn't have anything special about himself, even though she'd probably hit him over the head and tell him to get over himself. 

  


"if you don't," hisoka continued, and gon realized he'd never actually answered the question, "i can give you one of my reserved guest tickets." 

  


"i have one, thanks." gon absolutely didn't want to share a viewing box with illumi. no way. 

  


hisoka tilted his head to the side, studying him carefully, then shrugged and let it go. it was unnerving how easily he could read gon sometimes, though gon supposed the skill came with age and experience. 

  
"why don't you like illumi anyway?" hisoka asked afrer a while. he was chasing the strawberry at the bottom of the smoothie cup with his straw. gon took pity on him and handed him his fork. he thought about hisoka's question for a while. was he that easy to read?

"it doesn't really matter why," he said, finally. "it's enough that you like him, isn't it?" he smiled brightly. hisoka  _ was  _ shy, and he didn't really talk about his feelings. he was wild, and unpredicteable, but gon's gut was never wrong. "it's brave of you to want to marry him, knowing what his family is like." he added.    
  
hisoka choked on the strawberry, his eyes going comically wide.

  


gon rushed to pat him on the back until he regained his ability to breathe.    
  
"sorry, sorry! i shouldn't have said anything!" 

  


hisoka is still staring at him like he's grown a second head. "are you a  _ witch?"  _

  


gon laughs as he walks back around the table to take his seat. "don't you know by now, hisoka? i know everything," he says brightly, throwing back one of hisoka's own lines at him. 

  


hisoka stares into his hands, splayed over the top of the table, his nails painted a light dusky pink. "maybe i  _ am  _ being a bad influence on you," he mutters quiet and incredulous to himself. 

  


gon laughs harder. he redirects his attention to his meal - whenever hisoka was buying lunch, he always insisted gon order the biggest possible servings, and take a box for home. it was kind in a way gon wasn't sure how to phrase, but somehow knew it was important to hisoka that he take the food. 

  


today, he was eating a massive serving of fried potatoes with a side of bacon caramelized in maple. he picked at his dish, while hisoka ate his starter slowly - slices of melon wrapped in a thin, pinkish ham. hisoka picked them up carefully in his finges and ate in small, delicate bites, almost bird-like, chewing slowly and swallowing with care, like each bite was a unique experience. 

  


gon wondered if enough time had passed for him to be able to ask what had been bugging him.    
  
"hisoka?"    
  
"hm?" hisoka arched an eyebrow, and stared him head on.    
  
"can i ask something?"    
  
he could sense hisoka's defenses coming up. he usually just came right out and said it, but it felt a little weird with the particular topic he was curious about. he had considered asking wing-san, but he wasn't sure he'd find the answers there - wing-san really didn't look like he knew a lot about this stuff anyway. and he didn't know if he should be writing to aunt mito either. 

and it's not like ging was around to ask. 

  


"how do you know when you're in love?" 

  


hisoka's face dropped into a wide smile, and gon could tell he was trying very hard not to laugh at him. gon appreciated the sentiment, but didn't like being patronized at all.    
  
"what?"    
  
hisoka covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head, still laughing silently, his broad shoulders shaking. 

  


"i'm sorry, i'm sorry. i know you're being serious," he waved his hands in a placating gesture, his eyes still creased. "i don't think i can explain it though. it's different for everyone. does it make me a boring adult, if i say 'you'll know when you're older' and leave it at that?"    
  
gon rolled his eyes. it  _ was  _ the boring adult answer. he'd expected better of hisoka. he stabbed into his potatoes miserably. 

  


hisoka was still laughing at him - gon could see it in his eyes. 

  


he had no choice. when wing-san came by again, he took him to dinner at a noodle place that had the most delicious noodles he'd gotten to eat outside of greed island. 

  


"wing-san, you know how you're grown up and stuff?" 

  


wing swallowed a mouthful. "sure i am, why?"    
  
"well, do you have a girlfriend? or a boyfriend?"    
  
wing-san spluttered. gon helped him to more water. "that's one spicy meatball," he managed out. "where's this coming from, gon?" 

  


"i was just wondering if you knew… how to tell when you're in love?" 

  


wing-san drank some more water. for a while. and then looked down at his plate.    
  
"that's… a hard question to answer. i think when you know for sure, then you just sort of …  _ know.  _ if you really love someone, it's a very warm feeling in your chest." 

  


gon nodded. that made sense, but it wasn't  _ helpful.  _

  


"you're about as much help as hisoka," he said dejectedly into his noodles. 

wing spluttered for the second time this evening. "you asked  _ hisoka?  _ what did  _ he _ have to say?"   
  
"that i'll know when i'm older." 

  


wing breathed a sigh of relief. he wasn't sure he could take hisoka in a straight fight, but with righteous fury and gon's well-being in mind… he probably could. good thing it wouldn't come to that.    
  
"well, i suppose he's right. i think if you're starting to ask now, maybe you already know," wing-san shrugged and picked his utensils up again. "are you going to be watching his fight?" 

  


gon nodded eagerly. "of course! it's even more fun to watch him without gyo - it's like real magic!"    
  
"yes, well… he does call himself a magician." 

  


"will you be watching?"    
  


wing-san nodded. "zushi got me tickets. it should be a good fight - hisoka's matches always are." 

  


they chatted pleasantly thoughout dinner. around wing-san gon felt the same sense of calm and belonging as he did when he was around mito-san, and wondered a little, if that's what having a dad was like. then again, wing-san could never compare to ging - after all, ging was just  _ too  _ awesome. 

  


on his walk back to his room he checked the scheduled fights for anything interesting - zushi didn't have another match scheduled for a while yet, but there were a few fighters from the lower floors gon was keeping an eye on. 

  


he'd thought about staying on whale island longer- he'd wanted to, at first, and he'd done valiantly the first month, but at the end of the day… there was so much out there. he wasn't the same person he was when he left, and he couldn't explain it to mito or abe-san, so he'd quietly packed himself off to the republic of padokea again. he'd still taken all his schoolwork though. he was fully intending on completing it, and finishing his education, and not just because he'd promised mito-san. apparently wing-san was tutoring zushi, and even hisoka had thrown him a cursory glance and asked him about school. he'd said somethign to the effect that education was a very important privilege, and not to be taken lightly, and then promptly flung gon across the room when gon accused him of becoming boring under illumi's influence. 

  


he was still in a good mood after dinner, and wing-san had made some interesting points about the history of martial arts, so gon was eager to sit at his desk and write them all down. he was working his way through all the packets with schoolwork, and some were going easier than others. geography and history was all fine - it was fun to learn all that stuff, but he'd taken one look at his biology textbook, with its detailed section on insects, and promptly gone to throw up in the bathroom. maybehe could bribe zushi to do the biology work for him. or something. 

  


he was mulling over a few car travel time problems, or the most difficult variety, where pretty much everyting was subjective and had to be determined, and each problem required four separate diagrams. it was wildly unneccessary, in his opinion, but it's what the government wanted him to know, so he'd better know it. he put effort into the diagrams, because he had no intention of puting actual effort into solving the problem. whatever answer he came up with would the answer he'd come up with. you just couldn't win them all sometimes, and that was fine. while he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life, he was absolutely and completely certain neither math, nor biology would be huge factors in his future. 

  


the truth was, he missed killua. plain and simple. he didn't know what he wanted to do, but he missed killua the most. kurapika was off doing something dangerous again, leorio was busy with med school, and gon missed killua, and missed his nen, and  _ still  _ didn't have a father, and math was  _ stupid  _ and the problems were deliberately written to be  _ confusing,  _ but he'd promised aunt mito that he wouldn't just drop the ball on his education, and so - 

  


the knock to his door startled him. it wasn't insistent. the tap was rapid, and irregular. literally  _ anything  _ was better than trying to figure out how fast a car would have to drive to avoid being read ended into another car on a yorbian high way though, so he stood up, and stretched.    
  
"i'm coming," he called out to whoever was at his door. the knocking stopped. 

  


gon rose to his tip toes to check the peep-hole first. it was hisoka. and he did not look good. gon opened the door quickly. 

  


hisoka was in his casual clothes - today, a powdery pink sweater, now stained with blood, and wide leg white trousers showing a myriad of mud stains and wet spots. his makeup was smudged, revealing bruised skin under, and his lipstick smeared overswollen split lips, a thin rivuled of blood was drying on the side of his face, coming from somewhere hidden by his messy hair. he was shaking so bad his teeth were chattering loud enough for gon to hear. he looked wild and unhinged in a way gon hadn't seen on him before, even in the hunter exam. he held his arms over his middle, pale wrists bent unnaturally. his knuckles were swollen and bloody. 

  


"c-can i use your shower?" his voice was rough, hoarse, coming out in a stutter through his chattering teeth. his left ear was torn and bleeding, gon could see now - where someone had torn his earring out.    
  
he was too stunned to speak, moving out of his doorway. "hisoka, were you in a fight?"    
  
hisoka nodded gingerly, the motion sharp, sudden.    
  


"come in, come in, are you hurt?" stupid question, he very obviously was. gon had seen hisoka shrug off having both his arms ripped off in less than five minutes. he couldn't stand to imagine what could have shaken him. he wanted to reach out and fret over, but he didn't really dare touch hisoka right now. the wild, terrified look in his eyes was something to be wary of, especially now that he didn't have his nen. 

  


hisoka walked in, bereft of his usual dancerly grace. he was limping in his scuffed stilettos, in the same daring neon pink as his nails and lips. gon shut the door behind him.    
  
"can - is there anything i can do?"    
  


hisoka turned to face him, looking at him like he was seeing him for the first time. "it's fine," he was still shaking, like he was freezing. "i'm fine… i just need - i wanted to - " he lapses, and doesn't pick his sentence back up. 

  


he stands unmoving in the middle of gon's room. it occurs to gon that he's trying to hug himself, and can't because of his wrists.    
  


"why don't you um… why don't you go use the shower, and i'll get the first aid kid?" gon asks. it's best to approach hisoka in the same way he would a wounded and aggresive animal. hisoka wasn't dressed for a fight. he must have been going around town, doing whatever it was that he did when he wasn't aggravating people, practicing his magic tricks, or looking lovingly as illumi-san. that he hadn't been expecting it is what made gon truly angry. 

  


hisoka nodded, in a daze. "yeah… yeah okay. you're such a good boy," he sounded so far away, like he was speaking more to himself than anything. he limped his way into the bathroom, and gon heard the lock turn. he listened intently for the rustling of clothes hitting the floor, and then the shower coming in. 

  


he dragged his first aid kit from under the bed. hisoka might like to wear something that wasn't blood stained, but all gon had on hand was a duffer of wing-san's fight clothes, from the last time he and gon had taken a practice spar together. he'd absolutely meant to return it tonight, but then he'd gotten distracted, and then he'd almost been late to meet him, and so - 

  


he debates briefly going to get some of hisoka's own clothes from his room in the 200's. but then he hears the strangest sound. it sounds like hisoka is… laughing? but that isn't quite right. gon's heard hisoka laugh so many times - genuinely, or hysterically, or mockingly and this sounds more like - is hisoka  _ crying?  _

  


he stands frozen in the middle of his room and listens to the sound of hisoka sobbing in his shower. he doesn't know what to do. he's never had to comfort someone who is crying. he doesn't even know what happened, except hisoka was in a fight. and he doesn't - he doesn't understand. finally the horrible sound of hisoka's crying subsides. gon forces himself to rifle through wing-san's bag for an overly large hoody and gym shorts. wing-san liked to look as put together as possible when he was walking around, so he always changed into workout clothes for actual spars, or whenever he was showing gon and zushi anything particularly physically strenuous, and now it was a good thing. 

  


he went towards the kitchenette area and started the electric kettle. he only had mint tea, so it would have to do. killua's last care package had included seeds, and gon had planted them in a little mug - and the mint plant was coming along magically. 

  


he was just pouring water over the leaves when he heard the bathroom door open. clouds of steam rolled into his room. he didn't even want to imagine how hot the water must have been. 

  


hisoka stood in the carpet, dripping water. he was wrapped up tightly in one of the fluffy robes that came in the room, and  _ still  _ shaking, his bruised fingers digging into the soft white flannel.    
  
"hisoka?" gon said softly. again, it was like hisoka was only hearing him through a fog. he blinked slowly and turned to face gon. without makeup, the bruises on his face were striking.    
  
"i made you tea, and i got some painkillers," gon said gently. "will you let me take a look at where you're hurt? i'm not a doctor, but i can help." 

  


he was especially eyeing hisoka's fingers. he'd seen the ease with which hisoka simply snapped them into place during razor's dodgeball game. hisoka said "okay" in the same mechanical way. his teeth weren't chattering as badly anymore. he let gon lead him to the bed, and sat the edge carefully, tugging the robe around himself like it was his last line of defense. his eyes kept roaming the room. he was wound up so tight, so  _ afraid  _ of something gon couldn't see, or perceive. the idea that hisoka was scared of  _ him  _ was preposterous, when just a few days ago, he'd been using gon as a glorified punching bag. hisoka was… he was what gon thought of when he thought  _ power.  _

  


hisoka's gaze kept coming back to a large stuffed yorbian ram, another gift killua and alluka had mailed him from one of their many pitstops on their adventures. gon picked it up gingerly, and held it up to hisoka. it was pretty much just a big pillow, with a sheep's face and legs added, and gon liked to cuddle it before bed.    
  
"his name is bonifacious, and you can hold him, if you want." he said quietly. hisoka took the sheep, settling it in his lap. he laid his hands on top of the soft woolen fur. "can i touch you?" gon asked quietly. 

  


hisoka didn't move for a long time. finally, he extended his hands to gon. his wrists were swollen, and a deep violet. gon felt the skin carefully. they were no longer bent in that horrible wa - hisoka must have set them himself in the bathroom, so all gon had to do was make sure they were immobilized. it would probably make more sense for hisoka to use bungee gum - which would work much better than a simple bandage, due to having the properties of both rubber and gum, but gon didn't say anything, just set about bandaging carefully. some of hisoka's nails were chipped and broken, he noticed, while applying band aids to the places where his fingers were cut. 

  


he moved on to swabbing the gash in his cheekbone with rubbing alcohol. hisoka didn't even flinch, just sat, unmoving and let gon fix him up, and occasionally petted bonifacious.    
  
"is there anywhere else that - ?" gon trailed off.    
  
hisoka opened his mouth. it took him a few tries, but he got there. "i need you to set my shoulder. i dislocated it. i can't on my own." 

  


it's the most gon had heard him say all evening. he waited for hisoka to let the robe slip over his shoulder so he could work towards re-attaching it. he'd done this before for zushi once - he'd thrown his shoulder in a spar, and wing-san taught him how to do it in case he ever needed to. hisoka didn't make a sound. 

  


when gon handed him the tea, he took it carefully in both hands. 

  


"hisoka," gon tried to keep his voice as careful and soft as possible. "what happened?" 

  


hisoka shakes his head slowly, and takes a long slow sip of the tea. gon doesn't want to push it. he hands him the painkillers instead, already popped out of the blister, so all he had to do was swallow them. 

  


gon sat on the edge of the bed next to him, with enough space between them that hisoka could push him away if he wanted to. 

  


"i'm tired," hisoka said, when the tea was all gone. gon's left leg had gone numb, bit he didn't want to move form his position, didn't want to disturb the delicate tranquility that settled between them.    
  
"you can sleep here," he said genuinely. he didn't feel all too good about sending hisoka outside on his own. "i'll take the floor, it'll be fine -" 

  


hisoka had bristled beside him, so, so unnaturally still, it was as though he was fixing to simply disappear.    
  
gon could see the muscles in his throat working, like he was struggling to breathe. "i don't want-" he started saying, sounding so, so impossibly tight, like someone had taken all the air out of his voice, squeezed him up like a lemon in an unforgiving fist, and there was nothing more to him. 

gon doesn't know what he's said that's brought this on. doesn't know what  _ to  _ say, when hisoka is like this, almost unknowable to the smiling, irreverent magician gon knows. 

  


"do you want me to walk you up to your apartment?" he tries, instead. hisoka is still so, so terribly still. he'd tightened his grip on bonifacious, digging painful fingers into his soft fur. 

  


he looks down at the toy in his lap, and then around the room, and then at gon, and the cogs in his mind seem to be turning. gon stills himself, goes as still as he did when he was hunting hisoka in the exam, makes himself go silent, invisible, waiting. 

  


"you'll sleep on the floor?" hisoka asks finally. he sounds like he's been swallowing barbed wire all day.    
  
gon nods. "yep. or i can go sleep at zushi's!" it's a bit late, but he's sure zushi won't mind. 

  


hisoka shakes his head. "don't wanna - don't wanna be alone, right now." 

  


gon nods, and gives him a smile. it feels wrong and fake on his face, but he has to act like normal, and maybe it will reassure hisoka more than if he just frets. 

  


"okay," gon says. "then you can sleep here. i got some fresh clothes for you-" he points to the pile of wing's stuff he'd put out. "i'm gone go clean up in the bathroom, okay? lemme know when it's okay to come out." 

  


he hops off the bed and practically sprints into his en suite. hisoka's discarded clothes are in a heap on the floor, next to his stilettos, haphazardly kicked off. it's a testament to how rattled hisoka is. for all his carelessness may be applied to other aspects of life, he's always been very fastidious about his apparearance. gon had seen him use bungee gum to cover stains and scuff marks on the go more than once, to preserve a pristine appearance. 

  


he straightens the shoes out. one of the heels is bent precariously, nearly broken. the noses are pretty much done for. he starts picking up the trousers to fold them, when he sees. in the heap of cashmere and linen, there's also a crumpled, bloody mess of pale silk and lace, torn up, and stained in the worst way. gon snatches his hand back, looking at the proof of the crime. it wasn't a fight, not like he'd thought it was. he probably shouldn't - shouldn't touch. if hisoka wants to press - charges, right? 

  


mito-san and abe-san used to usher him off to bed, and then sit int he kitchen to drink their tea and listen to the evening news, and sometimes he'd sneak downstairs to listen at the kitchen door. he'd overheard many a talk about ging that way, but also - a lot of the news they hadn't wanted him to know just yet. he knew about the sort of stuff men - bad, evil men - did to girls and women sometimes. he hadn't known it was the sort of thing that could happen to man, though it stood to reason, that if someone could do something so evil to a girl, they could probably do it to a boy too. and someone had done it to hisoka. hisoka, who was the most powerful person gon personally knew, and had come to him shaking and afraid - 

  


gon nudged the pile of clothes to the side with his foor carefully. hisoka shouldn't have to see them tomorrow but… he couldn't bring himself to physically touch them.

  


when hisoka finally said it was okay to go back in, he was already in bed, practically folded into the corner towards the wall, and wrapped up in the duvet like a cocooon, long arms wrapped gently around bonifacious the sheep, his wide gold eyes peering at gon carefully. 

  


he pulled the spare packet of bedding from the wardrobe, and set himself up on the floor.    
  
"let's get some sleep, okay, hisoka?" 

  


a nod from the magician. "leave the - " he cleared his throat. "leave your desklight on." 

  


so gon did. in its pale blue glow he could make the lines of hisoka's form in the bed, still tight with tension. he listened for the tell-tale sound of hisoka's breathing evening out, but he must have fallen asleep before it actually could happen. 

  


he woke up early though, to bright light coming in through the window. hisoka was still asleep, unmoving in the bed, the same tight curl under the covers. 

  


gon penned a quick note that he was going to get breakfast, and left it on his desk. he put extra care into his letters - he'd noticed that hisoka struggled with reading cursive, so he just used the basic block print - it was easier to write anyway. 

  


he left the room as quietly as possible, shuting the door behind him and holding the letch so it wouldn't click, and then  _ booked it  _ to hisoka's apartment. if anyone were to ask, he'd say he had hisoka's spare key card for  _ emergencies  _ but the truth was, he'd swiped it off him just to see if he  _ could  _ do it. and it had turned out that he could. and he'd kept it. which was lucky. 

  


it wasn't breaking in if you just used the spare key, right? 

  


the apartment was in the acceptable level of disarray of two people living together, where one of them was a dangerous internationally notorious assassin, and the other was - in gon's humble experience - the most flamboyant magician to have ever lived. he picked through hisoka's drawers for the softest leisure clothes he could find, and then through his fridge for breakfast foods. he was more of a tea and toast on the run to school kind of person, but he knew hisoka drank coffee. they had two coffee jards, labelled neatly in handwriting that could only belong to illumi. illumi's coffee smelled off. 

gon had pretty much everything he needed packed and ready to go, but he had to look harder for the real reason he'd come upstairs. hisoka's phone was tossed on the sofa. his screensaver was a picture of him and illumi taken somewhere dark. hisoka was smiling brightly, illumi wasn't, but his face was tucked into hisoka's neck, one slender eyebrow raised. 

  


_ please don't have a passcode, please don't have a passcode, _ gon prayed fervently as he pressed the home button. hisoka did not have a passcode. 

  


normally, gon would be tempted to snoop through hisoka's phone - was that a notification from  _ the pariston hill official fanclub facebox page?  _ but he only needed one thing, and he was pretty sure the contact name  _ fiance, love of my life  _ was it. 

  


illumi picks up on the second ring, "what."    
  
"uh, illumi-san? this is gon freecss?" 

  


he can practically hear illumi making a face on the other end. "i wasn't sure if i should call you," gon begins. "but this is about hisoka?"

  


he can hear muffled noises in the distance. "what's he done now?" illumi sounds at once alert and exasperated.

  


"nothing, i don't think. he's been uh… he's been hurt? badly? and i think it would be … it would be good if you came?"

  


"badly? badly how?"

  


he sounds worried now. his voice has the same tense tone to it as whenever he talks about killua. it's the kind of violent, possessive love that would have had him kill gon years ago, if it wasn't for hisoka's protection. 

  


but gon can't bring himself to say it. there's no way he can. he just hopes illumi can read it in his voice.    
  
"nevermind," illumi says. "i'm almost done with this job anyway. i can be back at heaven's arena tomorrow morning."    
  
"thank you," gon says earnestly. "he'll appreciate it." 

  


illumi is silent on the other end. gon thinks he may have hung up, when he hears a faint "take care of him." and  _ then  _ the line disconnects.

  


when he gets back downstairs, hisoka is still sleeping. he must have been awake well into the night. or maybe just tired. either way, it gives gon a chance to put his bedding away off the floor, and toss the frozen waffles he swiped from hisoka's freezer in the toaster. he puts hisoka's sleep, shiny phone to charge next to his own bug-phone, and leaves the pile of clothes he got for him on the desk chair. 

  


gon settles on the floor, killing time with the impossible car travel math problems, and also composing in his head what he was sure were well argued letters to the department of education in his district. he waits. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> illumi returns to heaven's arena, and has an important conversation with hisoka.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter gets extremely heavy, so PLEASE PLEASE heed the warnings in the tags, bc it REALLY gets into hisoka's past and the bad things that were done to him when he was young
> 
> i'm also adding a warning for disordered eating to the story, although it's not technically an eating disorder hisoka is struggling with.

hisoka comes awake with a rattling sharp intake of breath, and sits up in bed suddenly and violently, his eyes taking in the room.

gon doesn’t move, just waits for his shoulders to still. his hands look worse than they did the night before. the bruises on his face are now bisected by the creases of gon’s pillow. slowly hisoka rolls his shoulders and cranes his neck, and runs a hand through his unruly hair, smoothing it away from his face. he opens his mouth, and his voice rasps.

“gon-kun?” he manages on the second try.   
“i’m here,” gon says carefully from where he’d been sitting on the floor, coloring the topography into a blind map. the noon sun is high in the sky, but he’d left his blinders down, so hisoka could get all the sleep he so obviously needed.

hisoka seems to find his presence reassuring, because his shoulders drop, and he nods once to himself.

“i uh... i went upstairs, and brought you some of your own clothes,” gon says tentatively. “i kind of stole your spare keycard last week, so… sorry about that. good thing i had it though, huh?” he knows he’s rambling, but he can’t stop his mouth. back when he’d first gotten killua from kukuroo mountain it had been the same. he felt that if he stopped talking even for a moment, then killua would admit to something terrible, that gon would never be able to heal him from, if it was in the open between them.

hisoka doesn’t even react to his words. normally, he’d have congratulated gon on managing to pickpocket him even without nen, although more often than not, it was _easy_ to part hisoka from his possessions, as long as illumi-san was also in the room.

hisoka takes the pile of clothes form the foot of the bed and staggers into the bathroom, using the wall for support. the strain must be hell on his wrists. gon really hopes illumi-san is better with medical care than he is – his basics are solid, but that’s about it. and he’s not sure what else he _can_ do for hisoka right now.

the coffee and waffles have gone tepid, but he sets them on the table in case hisoka does want to eat.

too late he remembers that the pile of bloody clothes, and the ruined bloodstained underwear is still on the floor.

he changes his mind about the food and covers the plate again when he hears the sound of hisoka retching into the bathroom. it’s terrible. about as worse as the crying that had been ringing in his ears all day.

he can hear hisoka turn on the tap. he waits nervously. he wants to help. he wants to make this better. he doesn’t really know what to do.

he’d gone from genuinely fearing for his life in hisoka’s presence to considering him almost a friend, and now that friend was hurting, had _been_ hurt, and there was nothing gon could do about it.

when hisoka emerges dressed in his own clothes, he looks so much more himself. which of course, is stupid – hisoka is still the same magician he was before he came to gon’s room last night. his face is devoid of bruises – he must have texture surprised them. his hands and nails are also back to their usual perfect condition. he’s holding the pile of his ruined outfit.

“i’m… really sorry about last night, gon-kun,” hisoka says. his voice is laden with false cheer. he’s smiling. gon feels sick. “i shouldn’t have troubled you with my particular brand of professional risks,” more of that forced cheer, while his eyes are so, so impossibly dull.

gon doesn’t know what to say. he says “don’t worry about it.”

he wants to say more. wants to tell hisoka it was the least he could do. thathe wants to do more. the words are stuck in his throat, the way they stuck in his throat every time killua talked about his family.

he lets hisoka leave, and the click of the door shit echoes hollow in his chest. he tries to do schoolwork for the rest of the day. he tries to think about other things. illmi-san will be back tomorrow, and then he’ll know for sure hisoka is alright.

when he makes his bed and straightens the rumpled sheets, he’s not surprised to find bonifacious’ soft fur wet with tears.

hisoka makes his way back to his apartment slowly and deliberately. he does not limp, and in fact, puts an extra sway in his hips. he smiles to the elevator operator. to anyone else he looks like he’s a well-fucked floor master on his morning post-conquest parade.

when his apartment door finally shuts behind him, he slides every single lock in place, and pulls the blinders and curtains over each of the tall windows. only then he can finally breathe. he crawls in bed, and curls up on illumi’s side of the bed, breathing in his beloved’s scent – earth, and pine shampoo, and the pure scent of his skin. he misses his love. well – he misses his love always, but especially now.

he’s not sure what possessed him to go to gon-kun’s room last night. some silly, ridiculous notion. this is not the worst thing that’s happened to him. it’s not even the first time something like this has happened to him, though it has, admittedly, been years. though he has, admittedly, crafted himself entirely into someone to whom these things do _not_ happen anymore.

the ache is familiar and he hates it. it brings back memories of slums, and dusty roads, and an emptiness in his stomach and in his heart. a past he doesn’t like to think about – that he – truthfully- hadn’t thought about in years.

he pulls the comforter tighter around himself. he killed one of them – he knows that for sure. maybe he’ll go back for the rest. later. eventually.

when he wakes up next, it’s dark outside, and not just because of the blinders. his stomach is growling, but he can’t bear the idea of leaving bed. he’s not sure what that means. outside of bed there is the luxurious bathroom of his apartment, a shower cabin with tropical spray and floor lighting, and a spacious bath, big enough for four or more, that he’d had installed back before he enticed his love, and he can visualize clearly each colorful bottle of scented salts and oils. outside of bed is his kitchen with its fully stocked fridge. he could eat something light – an apple maybe, or some yogurt. he just has to move.

when he wakes up next, he’s not alone in the room. his heart thunders in his chest, for a few horrible, nauseating moments, before he recognizes his love. he’d recognize illumi anywhere. 

his sweetheart is leaning over him in bed, his long hair a beautiful curtain of midnight silk around his pale face.

“hey,” illumi says, voice quiet and soft. “i didn’t want to wake you. gon said you were hurt.”

did he? the little tatle-tale. hisoka is gonna wring his little neck, future potential his _ass._ he’s going to toss him out the window, see him try to talk his way out of _that_ one.

“i did,” he admits, and smiles a little, self-deprecating. it’s a calculated move. lying to illumi is always tricky business, but he’s not a performer for nothing. “i think gon-kun got a little too worried, but i’m fine now. nothing some sleep won’t take care of.”

illumi’s face is deadpan, unimpressed, and blank.

“i spoke with him before coming here.” his doll says flatly. _busted._

hisoka looks away from his face. illu sighs.

“may i sit?” 

he doesn’t wait for permission, just perches gracefully at the edge of the bed. he’s already changed into one of the threadbare oversized shirts he loves so much.

“hisoka –“ he starts, then falters. he scrunches his beautiful face up, and hisoka hates to be the one who put that expression there. “i love you,” illumi says finally, though for all that he struggles with it, it’s like he’s spitting out glass. “i don’t – say it a lot. i know i don’t. but – i do. so when you… are hurt… when bad things happen to you… i want to know about it.”

“even if you can’t protect me?”

illu shakes his head, and even that is beautiful. every part of him is beautiful. “you know about the bad things that happened to me,” he says quietly. it’s true, but it’s not much. every inch of illumi is tailored in a particular way, so as to scream _my daddy beat me unconscious and my mommy didn’t love me_. hisoka would have known it eventually, even if his love hadn’t said anything.

“i would undo every single one of them, if i could,” he says instead, and means it. some nights, when illumi’s shaking in his arms, after waking up too confused about where he is, hisoka wishes he could reach back in time, and paste texture surprise over every single memory, clear away all the damage, undo all the things kikyou and silva zoldyck did, it’s a wish bigger than his heart can contain, more than he’s wanted anything – even for himself. 

illumi’s smile is a brittle thing. “you wouldn’t love me if i wasn’t broken,” he argues gently. “and it’s not me we’re talking about, though i applaud your attempt as misdirection. i do feel the sentiment.”

hisoka lets himself smile. oh, his clever little darling. 

“i killed one of them,” he says instead of responding. 

“will you kill the rest?”

 hisoka shrugs. “maybe. i haven’t really decided yet.” 

“will you be angry with me if i do it?”

ah, his sweet darling. he would, wouldn’t he, try to fix this the only way he knows how. there’s no fixing what happened. there’s no fixing hisoka. like the other times, this too, will become something he forgets.

“you can do what pleases you, my love. it won’t undo it.” 

illumi looks down at his lovely hands. his brow creases with frustration. “i do know that. i just – “

“like i said, my love, it’s nothing i won’t heal from with some sleep,” hisoka lies smoothly. “and you are here now, so already, i feel better.”

that part is true. illumi shakes his head. “i won’t make you talk about it, if you don’t want to.” he says kindly. “but you should eat something before we sleep.”

that gives him pause. it stills him. he shakes his head slowly. “i don’t want – i’m not really…”

“hungry?” illumi prompts.

“that.” 

illumi studies him carefully, his eyes seemingly swallowing every bit of early morning light in the room.

“no?” illumi asks, tilting his head to the side, bird-like. his stomach does growl, just then, but he grits his teeth through a smile, and shakes his head again.   
  
“i don’t want to eat just now,” he amends.

“gon says you haven’t eaten.”

“gon-kun’s a good boy.” hisoka says. he means it too. and he’s going to fucking strangle him in his sleep for not keeping his well meaning little mouth shut. no one asked him to butt in just then, with his silly little savior complex. 

except. well. hisoka had. he had gone to him in the first place. he had been confused, and in pain, and everything was a blur, and all he’d known was that he didn’t want to go back to the empty darkness of his flat without illumi in it, and be alone in there.

 “he’s a good boy – “ he repeats absent-mindedly. 

“i’ll make you a fruit juice,” illumi says. “can you drink that for me?' 

he has to think about it. he probably could. he definitely should.

“put honey in it?” 

illu nods obligingly. he stands up from bed. when he moves to leave the room, hisoka stands too, and follows him silently to the kitchen. he sits at the table and watches his beloved put apples in the cold press. he adds carrots and a liberal amount of honey. it’s an altogether healthy substitute for breakfast. hisoka cups his hands around the tall glass.

“won’t you drink it?” his love asks, with that particular blank tone that hisoka has come to recognize as his gentle-come-worried sound. 

he falters. he certainly meant to. 

“you know i grew up in glam gas, right?” he asks instead.

“along the caravan routes, you said,” illumi nods. 

“my mother was very poor. i often went hungry.”

 “that’s why you loved bungee-gum. you could chew it for hours,” illumi says quietly. “right?”

hisoka smiles, because he can’t not smile, because his love pays attention, and because he knows when he says what he says, he can’t unsay it. he’s a transmuter. this is a whim.

“i never told you what i did to earn my first stick of bungee gum,” he stares down at the drink illumi so lovingly prepared for him. it probably tastes very good. beggar children with sunken stomachs have no right to choose what charity they’re given.

 "you don’t have to tell me.” illumi says, quiet, serious. oh, his clever darling.

 “i thought you wanted to know about the bad things that happened to me,” it’s cruel. he’s being cruel. illumi says nothing.

“i was a good boy,” hisoka says quietly. that’s what the man had said. his hand had been heavy in hisoka’s hair. he’d wanted to wash the taste out of his mouth with mud water, with garbage, with anything. the man had handed him the bright colored stick of gum. his jaw had ached for days. he’d popped the gum in his mouth immediately, before any of the other scavenging children, all of them starving like him, saw it, and tried to fight him for it. they were friends when the caravans were passing by in the summer, and the scraps were plenty. but last winter, hisoka had put two of them in the ground, when they tried to steal food from him. another two when the previous two failed to return with his stolen food. and it was autumn now. and the travelers were less. and hisoka’s mother was sick and dying, and he’d put her in the ground soon too. and _then_ he’d leave this place. the taste of bungee gum lingered in his mouth, covering the taste of what he’d done to earn it. it was the first time. it hadn’t been the last 

illumi’s eyes are quiet. all of him is quiet. he is thinking. processing. his beautiful head, filled with pretty colorful rocks, rattling around his gorgeous delicate skull, each clang of stone against bone generating another synapse.

“you think i didn’t know?” illumi asks finally, quietly. “i am not so… unaware to the world.” he is measuring his words carefully. “my mother is from meteor city. what do you think she did, before my father took her away? you took yourself away, didn’t you?   _you don’t have to earn anything from me._ _you don’t have to be good either._ ” he shakes his head. his lovely hands ball into fists. hisoka is not sure how he feels. something in his chest tightens, fierce and barbed and enormous, too big for his bruised ribcage to contain.

illumi stands up slowly, carefully, every motion so impossibly elegant. hisoka had loved him from the moment he first laid eyes on him, a delicate boy in a beautiful dress, too expensive and clean for the market he was walking through. he’d wanted to tug on his gorgeous hair, and steal his coin purse in the distraction. he wanted to kiss his beautiful, apple-pale cheeks. illumi had smelled so clean and crisp, hisoka had thought he might be a princess.

he leans down so their eyes meet. their noses are almost touching.

“you are not a sum of the bad things that happened to you,” he says carefully. each word is thought out, weighty. “ _you_ are what happens.”

his lips are cold and dry against hisoka’s forehad. “drink this,” he says sternly. “and then come in the bathroom, so i can take a look at your wrists and your face.”

his sentiment is gone, and it’s his doll back to business. that big awful thing in his chest swells again, and he takes a large gulp of the juice to hopefully quiet it, to keep it at bay, before illumi can see him bawling like a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are moderated as FUCK 
> 
> also, it was supposed to be a 2-part story, but i struggled so much writing this chapter, and it's extremely heavy and upsetting to me as a writer to work on it, so i had to split this chapter in two parts for my own sake, and will post the next (and final) installment .... at some point soon idk


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gon and illumi go on a revenge murder roadtrip and share a heart to heart. hisoka's energies and chakras are realigned, and everyone is happy and recovering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for nongraphic murder and violence in this chapter 
> 
> this chapter is the finale of this story, and i honestly couldn't bear to make it too dark because chapter 2 REALLY fucking took it out of me and upset me way too much to write, which is why this chapter is mostly gon's pov.  
> i wanted to end the story on a somewhat positive note, and pepper some lightness through, because ultimately this story IS about recovery and found families, and i hope i did it well

gon opens his door without checking, and that’s his first mistake.

“you’re not hisoka,” he says dumbly. illumi zoldyck raises one perfect slender brow at him. his entire being is concentrated into emanating conscious waves of distaste straight at gon. he tries not to terribly mind it. “you smell the same…” he says awkwardly, by way of explanation, because it’s true. it makes sense, he supposes, because illumi and hisoka share a bed, because they are –

well. they’re something that fills hisoka’s eyes with laughter, and makes illumi’s thin bloodless lips curl into a snarl, that suggests gon may painfully die if he doesn’t shut up quickly.

it’s hard to think of illumi as a person who is someone’s “fiancée, love of my life”, let alone that someone being hisoka – bright and vibrant and undeniably present even when you didn’t want him to be – in fact – especially then – wheread illumi is… well, the opposite. illumi is the absolute absence of a person. even killua never seems sure what to make of his older sibling when talking about him, the rare times his voice would drop to a whisper, fear, resentment and awe all at once.

he regards illumi suspiciously. “can i help you, illumi-san?”

 _killua will be very sad if i die_ , is what he wants to say, _so please don’t kill me. also hisoka. he will be sad too. he might even call the wedding off._

illumi is entirely impassive in his doorway, his slender arms loose at his side, projecting an air of calm serenity, though it is very much the serenity of the whale island coves during shark season.

“i wanted to thank you,” illumi says.

“oh – okay?” that catches gon entirely off-guard. maybe he really is as dumb as killua seems to think he is.

“for taking care of hisoka,” illumi clarifies. “it was good of you. that you didn’t let him be on his own. and … that you called me. i don’t,” here his perfect brow creases with a frown. “i don’t think he would have told me himself. so i would not have been able to help him. so thank you.”

“how is… how is hisoka doing?” gon says. he decides the safest route is to clutch on to a way out of having a conversation dangerously close to approaching the topic of feelings.

“he’s fine,” illumi says, voice clipped. “he needs to rest, and he’ll venture out when he’s feeling more like it.”

“suppose that upstart from 213 will lift his mood any?” gon ventures. he has no illusions that he’s the exception to hisoka’s rule, in that pretty much anyone else who steps in the ring against him gets taken out in a bodybag. if there’s enough of them to take out.

“definitely,” illumi says, without any inflection. “he needs to… realign his chakras.” he scrunches his nose up.

it absolutely sounds like something hisoka would say to justify his bloodlust, as if it requires justification.

“i’m sure he could just buy a crystal for that,” gun murmurs despite himself.

illumi doesn’t roll his eyes. he doesn’t, but it’s a close thing. “he has one.”

gon has no idea how to respond to that. hisoka was one of the must superstitious people he’d ever met, and that was saying something, considering he’d grown up with mito and abe-san.

“but i am actually here to discuss with you the issue of aligning my own… chakras.” illumi shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

yes. he is here to kill gon to relieve his stress. well – his life has been a short one, but not one without adventure, and in all honestly, he has already lived much longer than expected, what with how bad a shape he was in after what happened in NPG…

“that is to say,” illumi continues, oblivious to gon rehearsing his last words in his mind, “i am here to …invite you along, i suppose.”

“i’m sorry, invite me?” gon stumbles over his words. is this going to be the phantom troupe all over again, where he gets walked to his future burial site?

illumi nods. “the men who did this to hisoka,” he clarifies. “i want them dead. i thought maybe you’d feel the same way?”

the truth is, gon does. oh, boy, does he ever. death is not unfamiliar to him. he’d go as far as to say he knows it well – not like killua does – his life is not steeped in it, but certainly, unlike kurapika, he knows intimately the danger of taking life. has done it. has not been terribly changed by it. when he’d been back on whale island, mito sometimes looked at him like she didn’t know him. he wondered if killing pitou had done something terrible inside him, the same thing leorio and killua worried would happen to kurapika, when his revenge was finally complete, but he knows better now. it’s not pitou’s death – or the ones before it, by his hand, and by killua’s loyalty to him. it’s losing kite. that is what changed him. not losing him, but regaining him – that strung together ragdoll, empty, on strings he could trace to a hateful hand. the familiar rage had reared its ugly head only momentarily when he saw the bloodied underwear on his bathroom floor, the delicate lace like a string connecting hisoka’s harrowing maniacal sobs in the shower to an understanding he desperately didn’t want.

illumi is waiting, patient and still.

gon studies his handsome sharp face carefully. he doesn’t have nen anymore – he is no longer a powerful prodigy. he’d staked it all on _his_ revenge, his future, his promise, all of the potential he would never live up to, as payment for the instant gratification of being – in one moment – worthy of kite’s sacrifice, of fulfilling and living up to _kite_ ’s faith in him, of kite’s love not for gon freecss, but for _ging’s son._

“are you sure i won’t hold you back?” he asks. he is not a child anymore, like he was once, he won’t run headfirst, without thinking, because death always follows him when he does, because before kite it was pakunoda, whose smile he still remembers, the price for kurapika’s revenge, the first of many.

illumi cocks his head to the side, seemingly surprised. it’s hard to tell with him. his eyes are so huge and black, it’s hard to intuit any single one of his expressions.

illumi shrugs his shoulders gracefully. “it would be virtually impossible for you to hold me back,” he says lightly. “you’d have to actively try to hinder me.”

his words are spoken without the self-confidence of killua’s infrequent moments of boasting his underworld proficiency. for illumi it is merely fact.

gon wonders if he should say no. if he should, instead, go upstairs to hisoka’s apartment and keep him company. they could see what’s on tv, and gon could subtly (or not so much) prod him about his feelings. maybe he has seen enough terrible things. illumi looks like he doesn’t care either way.

“doesn’t hisoka want them for himself?” he’d wanted pitou. he’d wanted to crush her with his own two hands. he hadn’t wanted there to be enough of her left for anyone else.

illumi shrugs again. “he hasn’t made up his mind yet. but i’m not patient enough. he got one of them. if he wanted the rest, he should have been faster.”

it’s a callous, horrid thing to say. careless and insensitive, in a way gon recognizes well from killua’s brusque manner of shrugging off other’s concerns on a moral or ethical standpoint, on the matter of feelings or decency, and now gon can easily see where he picked it up from, and just as easily recognizes the underlaying level of worry.

_hisoka isn’t bouncing back from this quickly or at all. i am worried about him. i want to destroy this threat._

gon says “i’ll come with.”

he both surprises himself and doesn’t. he wants justice. he wants to fix this. he wants something.

he imagines a day where killua takes his hand and leads him to the inevitable conclusion of his own journey towards reconciling with his family the only way he knows how. he imagines himself following him towards a dark place where illumi is waiting unawares. he wonders if killua’s recovery will leave room for hisoka. he wonders if either of them would survive it the way they are now.

in a way, this is just rehearsal.

even if illumi knows what he’s thinking, he says nothing. they walk together through the sunny streets of the city. gon lets himself be led, without trying to put his own tracing abilities to use. that’s another thing he’s learning to do. the adults are adults for a reason, the adult survived to adulthood for a reason. he follows illumi’s lead. illumi doesn’t slow his stride, the way hisoka does, mindful of gon’s considerably shorter legs. gon has to put effort in keeping up with him. they take a sharp turn into an alley that looks like a dead end between several tall buildings. illumi’s back is straight and tight with resentment. he’s not used to such long pointed silences. he is itching to break it. he does.

“why don’t you like me anyway?”

illumi stops so suddenly, gon nearly runs into him, and whirls around. his hair brushes gon’s nose. it’s soft and smells like hisoka.

“pardon me?” illumi says, and his voice raises a whole octave.

“i said,” gon repeats, “why don’t you like me? i mean, i’ve never done anything to you, aside from y’know -taking killua with me. but he wanted to go, so it’s not like i made him! and hisoka seems to like me just fine – and so does alluka-chan, and even kalluto-san doesn’t seem to mind me as much as you do. it’s just… you know, i’m hisoka’s friend and all. and he’s in love with you, and killua is my best friend, and you’re his big brother, so i feel like i have to get along with you, but you really don’t like me, and i’m trying to figure out why?”

for all his rambling explanation, illumi does not look less incredulous after hearing it.

he tilts his head to the side, careful and considering. he hums softly in the back of his throat.

“it’s not that i dislike you speficially,” he says at last. he is speaking slowly and choosing his words. “i suppose, on the whole, i am quite neutral towards you, to be entirely honest. i neither like, nor dislike you. it’s true that hisoka and killua both value your life – and since they are both important to me, i suppose i have to value your life as well, until that situation changes. in that regard, you might say i am quite ambivalent towards you.”

 _well, gon thinks._ good to know. _better to never have a divorce from his platonic marriage to killua then._

“i suppose a more accurate word for the …negativity you perceive from me would be… resentment.”

“you… resent me?” gon repeats dumbly.

“not… not you, per say.” illumi looks frustrated with himself. much like killua, whenever words for naming feelings are involved. “but i am resentful. in general. and …yes. angry too, i guess.” he takes in a deep breath. gon does too, mirroring, steeling himself for whatever illumi is about to say. “you came back,” illumi says. “you came back for him. you broke my arm, and challenged me, knowing who i was, and you ran back to padokea, back to kukuroo mountain, because you wanted to _save_ him, when you didn’t even know what you were saving him _from._ and then he came back for _alluka,_ who isn’t even _human -”_ his voice breaks up, something awful choking up in his pretty throat.

 _“_ do you resent me,” gon asks quietly, “or him?”

illumi seems to mull it over for a moment. “either. both. do you think anyone ever came back for me? or for milluki? do you think the butlers told anyone that we needed to be saved?”

for one perfect moment, gon perceives the whole bloody picture, from canary’s sobs wrecking her skinny shoulders, “please save him”, to gotoh’s resigned bow, to kalluto’s head, turned away from them all.

“i didn’t realize you wanted to be saved,” he says quietly. he remembers satots’s soft, dispassionate rendition of the events that unfolded after his match, illumi’s cruel, relentless taunting, and the unrestrained violence in his words, and looks up at his perfect, impassive face now. the only person in the world killua seems to fear.

illumi shakes his head, exasperation reading in every line of his body, looks down at gon with undeniable pity in his eyes – pity that seems to translate directly into _i feel so sorry for you that you have to go through life being so unbelievably stupid_ and says quietly, but with so much impossible feeling, “ of _course_ we did.”

then he turns around, his back to gon once more, and continues walking with purpose, so gon follows him. he wonders if killua knows about this. about illumi and the knowledge that no one ever thought he was worth saving. he wonders if killua cares, or if – much like his title of heir to the family – it is just another privilege he’s chosen to shrug off, rather than ponder too long on the meaning.

illumi is wrapping up the rubber sheets that he’d used to line the floor and taping them up carefully, while gon washes his hands off blood in the sink. he’s done this plenty of time after helping mito-san gut fish for dinner, and this isn’t much different. fish guts under the nails stink like _hell_ and human blood underneath the fingernails is a dead giveaway that you’ve been up to no good.

“i am normally a lot neater than this,” illumi had said. the ends of his luxurious silky hair were dripping blood. gon wondered if that’s how killua’s hair would like if he ever grew it long – white, obviously, but would it fall in a perfect silky curtain? or would it curl playfully around his shoulders? maybe he could convince him to grow it.

gon hadn’t really been much help, beyond standing in front of doorway, and making it inaccessible. well, that and the dictionary. he hadn’t known you could do that with a dictionary. it was the heaviest thing he’d reached in the spur of the moment. it had been not unlike clubbing a seal.

“illumi-san,” gon says, when he fishes the bleach from under the sink, and brings it over. apparently illumi’s arranged for the bodies to be collected by an acquaintance of his – something about there never being enough limbs on the black market – gon had honestly chosen not to hear the details  -

“hm?” illumi’s rolled his bloody sleeves up. he’s as calm and serene as ever. even his mindless brutality had had a method to it.  
“you know hisoka’s in love with you, right?”

illumi looks up at him. his eyes are incredibly dark. so dark, they seem to swallow what little light there is in the room.

“i’m only asking, because – well… you’re getting married, aren’t you?”

illumi is still patiently waiting for gon to get to his point.

“i just wanted to say, well – you should be considerate of his feelings, and try not to hurt them. and i have to say it, because i know you have a big family, and everyone there gave him a hard time about marrying you – even killua and alluka did! and he’s got no family to give _you_ a hard time. he’s got no one in _his_ corner. so i figure, i better say that for him. it must have taken him lots of courage to confess his feelings for you – you know he’s _shy…_ so please have consideration for him.”

illumi looks at him for a long time, with an unreadable expression, and finally nods once, curtly. “i will do my best.”

gon nods too, satisfied. he walks back to heaven’s arena on his own, hands in his pockets. illumi had shooed him away to finish cleaning up, and goon understood the underlying message – illumi did not want him crossing paths with his contact. that was fine by gon.

he considered his lunch options for the day, and ducked into the noodle shop hisoka had introduced him to ages ago. for a moment, it seemed perfectly normal that he’d see his favorite magician in the queue for the boba tea counter (not to be confused with the noodle counter).

he sounded, perhaps a tad overjoyed, when he says “hisoka!”, but hisoka returned the enthusiasm with a brilliant smile, and reached to pat him on the head.

gon was honestly getting a little impatient with this whole puberty business already – how much longer until he was taller than hisoka in heels? waiting another at least four to five years was such _bullshit._

“good to see you gon-kun,” hisoka said warmly. “you smell like bleach and my love. have you been up to no good?”

gon bit his tongue. he knew how touchy hisoka was about someone else taking his prey away.  
“kinda?” he ventured guiltily.

hisoka shook his head fondly. “you are both so wonderful. i feel lucky,” he winked. then he turned back to the lady at the counter and ordered for them both, even though gon hadn’t asked for anything.

they sat at one of the little tables by the window, where hisoka practiced his favorite hobby of people watching.  
“it’s good to see you outside,” gon ventured uncertainly. hisoka was smiling serenely.

“people tend to get upset if they don’t see me around for too long,” hisoka says sweetly. “my fight is coming up soon – i have to drump up interest. if people don’t see you around for too long before a fight, it screws up the betting odds in your opponent’s favor.”

“oh,” gon said.  
“and i did feel like seeing the sun,” hisoka adds, almost as an afterthought. “i drew my cards today. they said it would be a good day to be outside, and that i might run into you, and we may pass a pleasant afternoon.”

“are cards always this specific?” gon tried not to roll his eyes.

“you’re not taking my third sight seriously enough,” hisoka said, and shook his head. “i can teach you to read cards, but i’ll tell you right now, you probably won’t ever get on my level.”

“no?” gon was mostly curious why hisoka thought that. he knew there was an art to drawing tarot cards, but beyond that it was a guessing game, and then adding facts you already knew to the cards’ interpretation. hisoka could claim he was a clairvoyant all he wanted, but as far as gon was concerned, there was no third sight – just his powers of observation.

“nope,” he popped the “p” obnoxiously. “you don’t have traveler blood like me. so you don’t have the gift.”

“i don’t know who my mom is,” gon countered. “for all you know we could be related.”

he saw the exact moment a boba peark went down the wrong pipe as hisoka started coughing. he had to stand up and start patting him on the back again.

hisoka shook his head, and shot gon a dirty look beneath coppery lashes.

“well. we’ll be brothers in law after i get married to my love and you and killua-chan get married,” he said offhandedly. it was gon’s turn to choke. hisoka did not move to help him, just sat there and smirked like an asshole.

he sat at his vanity and removed his makeup carefully, prodding the bruises on the side of his face that were turning all sorts of interesting shades of yellow – they’d be completely gone pretty soon.  
“did you have a fun day with gon-kun?” he asked lightly.

the air around the doorway stilled for a moment, and then started moving away as illu emerged from the shadows.

“it was … illuminating,” illumi said, walking up behind him. he wrapped his long pale arms around hisoka’s shoulders loosely, and rested his chin on hisoka’s hair. “i can see why you like him.”

“oh?”

“mhm. are you upset with me?”

“with you? never.” hisoka pressed a kiss to illumi’s palm. “what would i be upset for?”

“for killing those men. i know you don’t like when people mess with your prey.”

“you know you’re the exception to my every rule, my love,” hisoka smiled in the mirror, as he noted illumi relax and lean more heavily into him.

he set his cotton pad down and turned around in his seat, pulling illumi between his knees gently. he cradled illu’s lovely face in his hands.

“thank you.”

illumi closed his eyes and nuzzled into the touch, sweet and needy.

“i’m sorry it was all i could do,” illumi says, after a while. “i’m sorry i wasn’t here to stop it. i’m sorry – that it happened in the first place. i wish i could reach back in time, and undo every single thing –“

hisoka shushes him gently. “that’s my line, doll,” he says, and wraps his arms around illu’s skinny waist, burying his face in his flat stomach. illumi rests his hands on top of his head hesitantly. hisoka isn’t sure how long they stay like that. he’s just grateful, and his heart is just full. illumi is the safest place he has ever known.

he is laying in a decadent, vanilla-crème brulee bath, toying idly with the floating ducks in the water, while illu takes one of his ungodly cold showers that keep his hair and skin so unfairly, sinfully soft. his wrists are giving him all sorts of trouble. the right one was just sprained, but the left one is _broken_ broken, and taking its sweet, sweet time healing. he’s holding it together with bungee gum and prayer. he’s going to make machi a whole lot of money after his fight with 213, since he has no intention on taking the match easy. then again, considering the tapes he’s seen of his would-be opponent, machi might just get away with a dinner and a have-a-nice-day. that’s not what’s on his mind though.

he hears the shower spray stop, and the glass door slides open.

illu’s bare feet pad quietly on the padded, memory foam bath mat.

“you know i would have, right?” he asks finally.

he catches sight of the vague outline of illu’s confused face in the fogged up mirror. “huh?”

illumi wraps himself in one of the heavy soft monogrammed towels, and starts carefully squeezing the water out of his hair into the sink.

“saved you,” hisoka clarifies.

“does gon tell you literally everything?” illumi asks, and the annoyance in his voice is the very real exasperation that marks his years of professional experience as the older brother to 4 (four) incorrigible tattle-tales.

“of course he does,” hisoka says easily, and moves in the bath, so he can face him. “i am a constant adult figure in his life – he views me as a mentor and role model, and i take that position very seriously. i would be a pretty crappy mentor if he didn’t feel like he can tell me everything.” he is smiling despite himself as he says it, because he means every word. oh, truth be told, he can’t wait to put the fear of god into gon-kun, in say ten-fifteen years, when he’s grown into his full potential and regained his nen (and, very optimistically speaking, if hisoka himself is still alive at that point, which – well.)… but for the time being, he is discovering there may be some truth to moritonio’s bullshit after all – it is good to teach someone all your tricks. remembering the old ringmaster is a momentary thought, that sobers him instantly.

“i would have saved you.” he repeats, for illumi’s sake “i would have come for you, to kukuroo mountain. you know that, don’t you? i know i said i wish i could undo everything they did – and i mean it, i do. but even if i couldn’t, i would have come for you, if i’d known you. i’d have beaten my fists bloody on those gates. i’d have fought and slaughtered your entire army of butlers, and i’d have crawled up that mountain on my broken hands and knees if i had to, and i would have dragged you away. i still would. i need you to know that.”

illumi is standing perfectly still, dripping cold water on the tiles. hisoka is aware when his shoulders start trembling ever so slightly, that his sweetheart is crying.

he steps out of the tub, getting vanilla water everywhere, and walks to him, and folds him into his arms. illumi clings to his shoulders.

they don’t really talk about it when they go to bed. illumi curls up beside him with his tablet, while hisoka slowly turns the pages of his bodice-ripper novel about a kakin concubine’s forbidden romance with a servant.

wing-san is in the middle of explaining something to zushi and gon, both of them listening with rapt attention, when suddenly, all the color drains from his face. he looks like he’s choking on air.

“wing-san?” gon asks, rushes to him to make sure he’s okay. “what’s wrong?”

wing’s whole body shudders, and he shakes his head hard.  
“i just… i just had the _worst_ feeling in the world, like someone just said something absolutely terrible, and unbelievable,” he said. “gon-kun… do you… view me as a mentor and an adult role model?”

zushi looks at them both, a frown clear on his ever-serious face. gon shrugs his skinny shoulders. “you know that i do, wing-san. i hold you in very high regards.”

“oh,” wing mutters. “thank god.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are moderated, be kind etc
> 
> also, there's a nod in this chapter to one of my other fics ... can you find it?

**Author's Note:**

> if u got to this part, it's bc you specifically searched for specific content, then clicked on it and displayed it so you could read it, and idk what to tell u  
> don't yell at me, comments are moderated, etc


End file.
